GGD 7 IR Stellar Group (2014)

Also known as LDN 1641 S 4 or informally as I would like to call it a wicked cool swirling cloud shaped like a slithering snake. This is another of Hubble’s infrared views of a stellar nursery and part of proposal ID 11548.

There is a paragraph of info at the 2MASS Atlas Image Gallery here (Do a text search for GGD 7). It is fun to compare that 2MASS image of this very same area of the sky to Hubble’s capability. North is not up in my image as it is in theirs but that brown bar going across I labeled here as the snake’s head. Holy details, Batman.

As with the previous image, color was applied by manipulating curves for each channel. It was not painted on. The diffraction spikes are misaligned because this data came from two different sets and Hubble was positioned slightly different for each.

All channels: WFC3 IR F160W

North is NOT up. It is 41.4° counter-clockwise from up.

Copyright information:
Hubble data is public domain, but I put a lot of work into combining it into beautiful color images. The minimal credit line should read: NASA / ESA / J. Schmidt

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.